Rey appeared before Matthias as he napped on his favorite bench.

  "Lord Matthias?" she began nervously.

  "I am no lord," he chuckled as he roused himself. "What can I do for you, Rey?"

  "Greg wishes to be permitted down," Rey informed him. "He says he has news he wishes to convey in person."

  Matthias nodded and, with a wave of his hand, conjured a large table before him. He also created another comfortably padded bench on the opposite side, this one without a back, so that Greg could sit without worrying about his tail. Rey vanished into a beam of light with a nod, only to return a few heartbeats later with Greg.

  Greg exhaled heavily, a concerned look on his face. "I don't think I like that variety of teleportation," he noted as he rubbed his belly.

  "Have you eaten yet?" Matthias asked.

  "No, luckily," Greg replied.

  "That might actually be why you reacted so badly," Matthias countered. With another gesture, he conjured a side table laden with snacks and drinks for Greg to peruse.

  Greg looked conflicted for only a second before his stomach settled the matter for him.

  "I guess it is worth testing," Greg admitted as he sat. He savored a bit of thinly sliced fish as he made himself a sandwich. "While I appreciate the hospitality—and the scenery," he continued, gesturing at the vast garden around them, "I do have official business to talk about."

  "The war between dungeon cores is escalating," Matthias guessed, leaning into the armrest of his bench to get more comfortable.

  "Can you help me lay this out?" Greg asked Rey as he handed her a large roll of vellum.

  It turned out to be a map of most of the continent. Greg began setting out tokens before muttering a word of power. The map came alive as the tokens slid into position and labels formed of their own accord.

  "Took a fair bit of coin to have this made, or so I was told," Greg said. "This is a living map—updates in real time. The guild has six of them."

  "Fascinating," Matthias marveled as he studied it. "But I think I will invest in making my own. I do have an in-house enchanter now."

  "Your enchanted goods are very popular," Greg allowed. "But something like this took several enchanters the better part of a year."

  At that moment, Rey returned, leading Cedric along one of the garden paths.

  "Oooooh," the slime marveled. "This is amazing work, but I can't really enchant vellum like that."

  "What about a full metal table?" Matthias asked. "With pockets of iron sand so it could manipulate the sand to show models of cities and armies?" Matthias was imagining a three-dimensional etch-a-sketch.

  Cedric seemed to vibrate at the suggestion. "Oh! That could work—but it would be heavy."

  "Extra functions to have it fold in half and turn into a book?" Matthias offered. "I know a metal book would look odd, but it would be inaccessible without activation phrases. Then a few runes to manage durability and weight."

  Cedric was swirling in anticipation now. "After the wellsprings, this sounds so much easier," Cedric admitted.

  Matthias conjured a large metal table with legs that folded neatly into slots beneath it. Cedric immediately began tracing circuit-like runes into the underside.

  "Anyway," Greg continued, having had time to get some food and fruit juice into his system. "The first clash of elder dragons was reported." He paused. "They both died, but they took out about twenty square miles of territory. A whole city—gone."

  "What was its name?" Matthias asked solemnly.

  "Ebonsburg," Greg answered, just as somber. "Total population of about eight thousand souls."

  "No warnings?" Matthias asked.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "The dragons weren't fighting anywhere near the city at first," Greg said. "The guild had divination mages watching the war, so we captured the whole fight on crystal. But the dragons fell from the sky and slammed into the ground. The trench they carved ran right up to the edge of town. Only a couple hundred made it through a teleporter before the spells and breath attacks started. The city was gone in seconds—reduced to a smoking crater."

  Matthias clutched the core in his chest. It ached to hear of so much loss of life.

  "Thank you for letting me know," Matthias said quietly. "But there is not much I can do."

  "There is, actually," Greg corrected him. "Give verbal permission. Welcome people here. Put out the call—any and all are welcome."

  "I thought that went without saying," Matthias teased softly. "Of course I will welcome anyone. I don't want something like this happening again when I could have done something about it."

  "Oh? Do you have elder dragons of your own?" Greg asked.

  "No," Matthias admitted. "If they are anything like the sea dragon I dealt with, they are wildly inefficient for the mana inside them. My solution is smaller—but possibly just as terrifying."

  Out of the gloom came something that made every instinct Greg possessed recoil at once.

  It did not announce itself. It *emerged*, slipping forward with the quiet inevitability of a stalking predator. The shape was broadly feline—four-limbed, low-slung, built for explosive motion—but every familiar line was twisted into something that existed solely to inspire dread. Its body was sheathed in overlapping plates of black chitin, matte and light-drinking, broken only by cruel spines that jutted backward along its shoulders, flanks, and spine like the memory of violence made physical. Nothing about it suggested ornamentation. Every projection had a purpose, and that purpose was pain.

  Great draconic wings folded and flexed along its back, their membranes thick and scarred, the joints ending in hooked claws that scraped softly against stone as it moved. They were not the wings of something meant to soar for beauty or freedom—they were weapons, built to grapple, pin, and tear. Behind it trailed a long, sinuous tail, too mobile, too alive, ending in a cluster of jagged bone barbs that shifted independently, as though each one were deciding how best to kill.

  Its paws were enormous, set wide for balance, each step placed with predatory precision. When it moved, long black claws slid partially free of their sheaths with a faint, intimate sound—an unconscious threat, like a predator idly testing the ground before a pounce.

  The head was the worst part.

  It was not the head of a beast one could name, nor of any thinking folk Greg knew. The skull was elongated and angular, layered with ridges and armored growths that guided the eye toward its mouth—a mouth that held far too many fangs, arranged not for display but for efficiency. Some were long and piercing, others shorter and recurved, all positioned to ensure that once something entered that maw, it would never come out intact.

  Its eyes locked onto the clearing, and Greg felt them more than he saw them. They burned with a predator’s awareness taken to an unnatural extreme—cold calculation wrapped around bottomless hunger. There was no rage in that gaze. No frenzy. Just the absolute certainty that everything it saw existed on a spectrum that ended with *food*.

  A mane of rigid, spine-like growths flared around its neck and shoulders, glowing faintly with internal heat, as though its wrath smoldered just beneath the surface, waiting for permission to ignite.

  The creature was vast—its body alone stretched roughly fifty feet from blunt snout to hindquarters, not counting the length of its living weapon of a tail. Its haunches rose to nearly twenty feet—but its size was not what made Greg’s blood run cold. It moved like a hunter half that mass, all coiled strength and restrained violence, perfectly aware of its own lethality.

  This was not a monster that inspired fear because it was unknown.

  It inspired fear because, on some instinctive level, Greg understood exactly what it was built to do—and how very good it would be at it.

  "What infernal beast is that?" Greg asked in awe and horror.

  "This is my rendition of a manticore," Matthias said proudly as he approached without fear.

  The manticore's eyes softened at the sight of him. It purred and lowered itself so Matthias could scratch its furry scalp and rub behind its ears.

  "Despite how terrifying it is," Greg said carefully, "I don't think it alone can threaten a dragon."

  Matthias nodded. "That is why it is not alone. This is the male of the pride. They hunt in groups and raise their young collectively—much like lions."

  Greg shuddered. "And what do they eat?"

  "Anything and everything," Matthias replied. "It would not do for my hunters to be unable to eat their own prey."

  Before Greg could dwell further on that thought, Cedric called out triumphantly.

  "I did it!" the slime burbled, dancing in place. With Rey's help, they set the table upright. "Activate!"

  Iron sand swirled above the surface before settling into a detailed topographical map of the continent. Cities and landmarks rose from the shifting grains. Greg stared in amazement as he watched dungeon armies marching across the miniature landscape.

  "Zoom in!" Cedric declared, pointing.

  The map enlarged, revealing individual buildings and even people moving through the streets from a bird's-eye view.

  "This is incredible," Greg breathed. "A continent-wide scrying spell."

  "No sound, no recording, and no color," Cedric said apologetically. "Couldn't fit it in with the other features."

  "Other features?" Matthias asked.

  "Zoom out. Change view to mana levels," Cedric commanded.

  The map shifted into an oscillating three-dimensional graph of mana concentrations across the continent.

  "This changes everything," Greg whispered.

  "More than you know," Matthias agreed.

  Even the manticore seemed transfixed.

  The highest concentrations of mana were not found in cities or dungeons. Natural life actively pushed ambient mana away. In the southwestern reaches of the continent—where no nations stood and no dungeons claimed territory—there was a vast, swollen mass of chaotic mana, growing and churning like a malignant tumor.